You're going to need some office Christmas party games if
you've been tasked with organizing your office Christmas party.
Perhaps you're looking forward to the prospect, or maybe you
feel like it's a chore.
Either way, we've compiled a bunch of games here that should get
you feeling enthusiastic and excited about the party you'll be
throwing – all your workmates will be expressing their
thanks and admiration by the end of the night.
Throwing a party for your office is a game of balance. You have
to weigh up what you can get away with and what kind of 'tone'
will work for your office.
For
example, if you work at a big company and the bosses from higher
up the ladder will be at the party, you probably don't want to
do anything too risky in your planning – keep the music,
decorations and games fairly 'family friendly.'
On the other hand, if you work for a small company where
virtually everyone knows each other you can usually get away
with just about anything, especially if you're friends with the
owner. Do what you need to in order to make sure everyone has
fun, but remember your party may have implications for your
career!
With that said, office Christmas parties can often be a chance
to turn the usual hierarchy of your company on its head. Role
playing games can be a good way to do this – where
secretaries end up telling CEOs what to do. We'll cover those
kinds of games and more throughout this article. Let's start
with some of the top picks for fun off Christmas party games.
Movie Trivia, Who Am I, the Alphabet Game and Name the Logo
Office party games can be broken down into two types:
physical games and mental games.
Mental games include things like trivia, pictionary and so on.
Physical games require people to get up and actually move
around.
The kind of games you choose will depend a lot on your venue.
Obviously, if you don't have a lot of room to work with you're
better off going with quiz-style games where everyone can stay
seated. Having people running around playing physical games in a
small space might be a recipe for disaster, so think ahead. 😉
When it comes to trivia games, there are all sorts of topics you
can use as office Christmas party games.
Movie trivia is a good choice for a work party.
Another
good one is 'Who am I?' – you can play a Who am I game
where the players can only choose Christmas-related people or
characters.
The idea of Who am I is that one person has to choose a name
– it could be a fictional character or a real historical
person – and everyone else has to try to guess who it is.
But they can only ask 'yes' or 'no' questions – 'Is it a
male?' 'Is it an animal?' – that kind of thing.
The Alphabet Game is another one that can be played
sitting down and requires a bit of cleverness.
It works like this: everybody sits or stands in a line or around
a table (it doesn't matter as long as there's a line-up or
people).
The first person in line has to say a Christmas-related word
starting with 'A,' the next person says one starting with 'B,'
and so on around the whole group.
When you get to the end of the alphabet, start again from A. If
someone says a word that isn't related to Christmas, they're
out. If someone takes more than 10 seconds to think of a word,
they're out.
And if someone says a word that has already been said, they're
out. Last person standing is the winner.
Name the Logo is another good Christmas game that works
well in an office party setting.
The game is pretty simply – you choose a whole bunch of
well known logos, but make sure you remove any giveaway words
from the images (you can either project them up on the wall as a
slide show for everyone to see or print them out). The idea is
to divide the party up into groups and then show the logos one
at a time.
Teams have to discuss between themselves to figure out what
company each logo belongs to, and then write it down on a piece
of paper. Once you've gone through all the logos, collect up
each teams answers and check who got the most right – the
winning team gets a prize.
Physical Christmas Party Games for the Office: Dress the
Santa
As
for physical games, here's one you might like to try: Dress the
Santa.
For this one, you'll need to organize plenty of old clothes
beforehand that look like they have something to do with
Christmas – these can be actual parts of Santa costumes,
or any clothing with a Christmas pattern, or just anything
bright red or green.
- Split the party up into groups – each group
should have about five people. - Each group needs to have its own pile of clothes. One
person in the group gets selected to be 'Santa.' - When everyone is ready, start the clock – each
group has 60 seconds to choose clothes from the pile and
dress their 'Santa' – but the Santa has to stand
completely still and let his team dress him, he can't put on
any clothes himself. - When 60 seconds is up, you then judge the best-dressed
Santa and give a prize to the winning team.
It's always a good idea to have a 'warm up game' –
something that will get the party started and get everybody
relaxed and chatting to each other. Your starter game should be
something that doesn't require people to push the boundaries of
their comfort zone too much.
Here's another game that you can play 'in the background'
throughout the whole Christmas party with Santa hats. Either
tell everybody to wear a Santa hat to the party, or provide a
bunch of Santa hats and give them out to everyone as they
arrive. One person at the party has to be the 'Real Santa'
– this can be you, if you like.
When the Real Santa removes their hat, everyone else has to take
their Santa hat off as well as fast as they can.
The last person to take off their hat gets penalized (what the
penalty will be is up to you, but make sure it's appropriate to
the mix of people you'll have at the party – it shouldn't
be anything that will make people uncomfortable).
Organizing Prizes to Raise the Competition Spirit
Christmas party games are always a little more exciting when
there are prizes on the line. You may want to check with your
boss to see if there are any spare company funds that can be put
towards prizes – you want to get a few fairly desirable
prizes, otherwise there's not much point.
A nice bottle of champagne usually goes down well as a top
prize, and gift baskets including wine and candy can be bought
ready-made for this sort of occasion.
Aside from prizes for games, it can be fun to hold a general
prize-giving ceremony designed to reward staff for their efforts
throughout the year.
This makes people feel appreciated after a long hard year of
turning up and putting their time in to make the company money.
You should try to find a way to include everyone in the
prize-giving ceremony, but make sure the prize names sound
authentic – things like 'Best Positive Attitude' and
'Best Motivation Skills' can go alongside more concrete prizes
like 'Top Salesperson.'
More Office Christmas Party Ideas
Costumes make the whole event much more fun – people
tend to let their guard down more when they're dressed up in a
ridiculous costume, so dress-up is a must for a big company
where people who don't know each other very well will be
mingling. It gives everyone something to talk about in those
awkward first few moments.
If you're in a managerial role at your work, why not take the
Christmas party as an opportunity to do a bit of team-building?
The whole idea of team-building exercises, after all, is to
create bonds between staff so they can work better together in
future.
If you can convince the top bosses that your Christmas party
will actually be good for productivity, you might even be able
to get a bigger budget for prizes and decorations!
The kinds of office Christmas party ideas which are open to you
also depend a lot on where you are in the world. If you're in
the southern hemisphere and Christmas is in the middle of
summer, why not arrange some outdoor activities for the
Christmas party?
Some companies even treat their staff to a day of waterskiing
and activities at the beach. If you don't have that kind of
budget available to you, you can simply find a nice scenic
location to enjoy a picnic in the sun.
Using a Christmas Party Service
If you're stressed about the prospect of having to come up
with a bunch of Christmas party games for the office and
organize the whole thing yourself, there is a simple solution.
In many big cities, party planning companies offer package deals
where they will arrange the whole party for you, for a fee
– including catering, games, prizes and so on.
An Unusual Company Christmas Party Idea Inspired by Survivor
All the office party games we've talked about so far a little
too tame and boring for you?
Well, here's an idea that might appeal to you.
Have you ever watched an episode of the TV show 'Survivor,'
where the contestants vote each other off? The game is a bit
like that.
In this game, everyone gets a secret vote for who they think is
the most 'naughty' worker at the office. They write down the
person's name, and a reason they think that colleague is
naughty.
Once all the votes have been cast, announce who the naughtiest
person in the office is and a few of the reasons why.
Be careful – office games are supposed to be fun, so this
is best done with a reasonably small group of co-workers who
know each other well and are used to joking around with each
other.
You don't want the whole thing to turn nasty, so everyone should
keep their reasons 'above the belt.'
The 'winner' of this game should get a prize which is
appropriate to the naughtiest person in the office.
Throwing a Memorable Party
When you're trying to come up with ideas for Christmas games,
you ultimately have to ask yourself what the whole point of your
party planning is – and the answer should be that you
want to throw a party everyone will remember for the rest of
their lives.
It may be a big job right now but if you put a lot of effort in
and make it a night to remember, it will pay off for years to
come.
The best parties are the ones that push the boundaries,
including games, decorations, themes and activities from
'outside the box.'
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